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Today (10/10/06) Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced that STURMOVIK™: 1946, take off in November 2006 for PCs in Europe and Australia. STURMOVIK™: 1946 is the latest instalment in the acclaimed Il-2 Sturmovik™ brand from award-winning developer 1C: Maddox Games.

STURMOVIK™: 1946 offers new campaigns, missions and aircraft as well as many exclusive features. Pilots can fly the skies and fight enemies over the Russian front, German occupied Europe, the Far East and the Pacific. STURMOVIK™: 1946 also includes all of previous Il-2 series content, thus bringing the most respected anthology flight simulator to an astonishing 229 flyable aircraft and over 300 total aircraft.

Key Features:

* New Aircraft – 32 new flyable fighters and bombers, including the long-awaited Il-10 Sturmovik, the Mig-9 Jet fighter or the Arado Ar-234 Blitz bomber; plus four new AI aircraft.

* New Maps – Large new historical maps of the Kiev region, a Manchuria region map focusing on the border between the USSR, China and Japanese-occupied Korea, a large bonus Burma map and an online Khalkin Gol / Nomonhan map.

* New campaigns - With nearly 200 missions, unparalleled realism and attention to detail, the nine new campaigns will thrust players into detailed fighter and bomber pilots missions for the German, Soviet and Japanese air forces.

* Alternate history - Three of the nine campaigns are a departure into alternate history, focusing on hypothetical battles between the Soviet Union and Germany in the year 1946 where WWII still rages on. Both the VVS and Luftwaffe now have access to advanced jet and rocket fighters.

* New features – In addition to such exotic aircrafts as Soviet mixed-power fighters, 1946 also adds an incredible variety of new ground targets, including, for the first time in the series, trenches and bunkers that give a whole new dimension to the ground attack aspect of the simulator.

* Nearly 1,000 new Paint schemes – The new planes, as well as many existing ones, come with a host of historical paint schemes, showing many of the individual aircraft or squadrons that served in WWII.

* Exclusive bonus - Making of, interview videos and screenshots of the new features, plus exclusive screenshots and never before seen videos taken from upcoming Maddox game: Storm of War™: Battle of Britain. A Detailed Plane Guide, totalling over 450 pages of information, gives the low-down on every single one of your 229 flyable aircraft, and allows new players much easier access to the incredible variety of aircraft in the simulator.

MKSheppard wrote:There better be a B-36!

Vympel wrote:1946? I don't get it.

Rekkon wrote:Woot! Of course my bundle did not come with either of the expansions, so I cannot merge it with Pacific Fighters and get all the associated goodies.

Must... fly... Me 262...

FSTargetDrone wrote:
What's not to get? You can have the fun of flying various Luft'46 designs.

Rocket fighters, jet fighters, wheee!

Rekkon wrote: You can already fly the 262 with the current releases, including a variant with a single 50mm cannon in the nose (nice for knocking down B-17s quickly). And the HO-229.

Vympel wrote:But the war was over in 1946. This is just ... not ... right.

If I can fly an Il-10 and the various late-model Lavochkins, I'll be happy.

Really? Have I missed an Il-2 release? Which one has the 262 with the 50mm?

MKSheppard wrote:There better be a B-36!

Rekkon wrote:Bah, keep your 50mm cannon. I prefer the awesome devastation and superior rate of fire produced by the four 30mm cannons. Suddenly all enemy aircraft are really, really brittle.

While it is possible I missed something, I have both IL-2 and Pacific Fighters updated as far as I can, and while IL-2 lets me fly against 262s, I cannot fly one myself. Again, as I mentioned, I do not have either IL-2 expansion pack, so I cannot merge it with Pacific Fighters. I assume the 262s were made flyable in one of the expansions, so I am just out of luck.

Rekkon wrote:I knew it.

Oh sure the 50mm cannon is fun, and I will undoubtably use it, but if I had to pick just one it would be the primary version.

I picked up IL-2/PF after stopping by a combat sim place in the Mall of America back in August. A.C.E.S. it was called. They used IL-2 merged with PF and all the updates to offer just about every WW II aircraft known to man. I quickly realized we were just playing a PC game with fancy peripherals, but their pods were still pretty cool, and the place was not that expensive. They also had some pods for F-18 sims, but we did not get the chance to try them.

Rekkon wrote:Aye. I only used the WW II ones, but they had an actual 'pod' that would open and close. The inside front was just a smooth surface for the projector, but you had rudder pedals, throttle, etc. Some force feedback too I think. Also a headset linked to the other pods and a 'flight controller' (the guy manning the PCs). As I recall a half hour was $30, and a full hour was $45. Being my first time with the game and the hardware I sucked pretty badly. Took up a FW-190 first, then switched to a Me 262. All told I got six kills and lost 4 aircraft. None of the other pilots were very good though. Half my losses were mid-air collisions.

FSTargetDrone wrote:Sounds like fun. So the viewscreen curved around you? Interesting...